Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 108119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 541(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
He knew threatening me only made me more indifferent. I raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Someone not getting any?”
Sergio and Phoenix were talking about something in hushed tones before giving me equally blank stares. Where Sergio had a man bun and was wearing black slacks and a dress shirt, Phoenix was in ripped jeans and a black tank top that matched the black tattoos on his arms. His hair was a little longer than usual and he looked just as cold and callous as ever. “We all here?”
“Vic’s got the front.” Phoenix crossed his arms. “Who’s asking questions?”
“Me,” I barked. “My club, my rules, and try to keep your guns in your pants, we’re a bit more civilized.”
Tex bit out a curse. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
I shoved the metal door open.
And there she was.
Looking every bit as pretty as she had when I saw her the first time, when she forced me to watch. Two. Hours.
“Son,” Alexander Petrov wasn’t a small man. “One day you’ll do the honors, one day you’ll get to feel how tight this is, how ready this woman is for me, see her face? You see it son? Watch her, watch what I steal from her.”
She held me there for my own father, made me watch the way he made her watch. Like if she was going to be punished, so was I.
I learned how to see without seeing that day.
How to stare at something and see nothing at all.
Feel nothing at all.
She was seventeen.
And I was ten. I watched it while I was ten.
And all I remember thinking after it was done… Would he someday get angry enough to do that to me too?
I prayed that very night for God to take my soul.
And woke up completely crushed that I was still breathing.
She had cuts on her face, dirt marred the red streaks of the blood that had dried against her skin, her ice blue dress looked more like a slip than a dress making it painfully aware that she was pulled from bed. And since my father was currently a rotting corpse, that meant they either finally found her, she gave herself up, or she slept with the wrong guy.
“Elena.” I said her name like the curse it was. The curse it had been to my life.
Her head lolled forward, a tired smile crossed her face. “Is that any way to talk to someone who used to hold you tight?”
I flexed my hands into fists. “Why are you here?”
“Does it look like I volunteered?” She spat blood on the concrete floor. “Ever since your father died, I’ve been in hiding, thanks for that by the way.”
“Tragic, you should have just ended your misery and drank poison.”
Her eyes narrowed into tiny slits as she nodded to the men behind me. “Friends of yours, traitor?”
“Traitor?” I barked out a laugh. “I have over a billion dollars at my fingertips, enough manpower to take you down without doing so much as sneezing, and you call me traitor? I can see it now, Alexander Petrov’s paramour, sleeping her way through the brotherhood in order to survive. I hope they’ve been wearing a condom.”
“Enough,” she snapped. “I can’t go to the FBI, so I came here.”
“Because you think they hold me in such high esteem?”
“Don’t patronize me. I know you have pull.” She sniffled as blood dripped down her chin. “I want protection.”
“You can buy condoms at the store. We done?”
“Don’t be a smart ass. I remember when you used to kiss me with that mouth—”
I felt the tension pounding in my chest, the ache of being abandoned, the fucking need to have something human love me, touch me, and then her cold brittle hands, slapping the tears from my face, when all I wanted was their warmth.
“Only out of respect. I preferred your lips to his knife. Don’t flatter yourself.”
She glared up at me. “I know who’s bringing in the girls, but I want protection. I want you to swear you’ll give me protection. He still has men out there, men trying to run this crumbling empire, men who want nothing more than to take the remaining heir down and start up the rings again.”
“I’m sure you do.” I grinned. “But they’ll have to come through me, and since none of them have the balls to even stand in the same room, it looks like I’m safe…”
“Offer me protection, damn it!” she roared.
I could feel the restlessness behind me. The guys liked to speak with their guns. Typically, I wouldn’t tell them not to. Violence got us answers, but not out of a woman who was born into it, a woman who fed it, who encouraged a young boy to watch it.
A gun wouldn’t faze her.
Blood was almost like her natural color.
And as much as I wanted to lie and say I would offer her protection; my word was everything.